Word of mouth is always an important factor in a movie’s success, but today it’s becoming THE factor. Before, the opening weekend of a film would be huge and then the drop off the next weekend would be influenced by word of mouth. However, with the rise of facebook status updates and twitter, the first day of the film’s release is really all that marketing affects. Everything else relies on the audiences’ reaction. While this article has some interesting points, I think it gives too much credit to social media on certain films. For example, Land of the Lost was critically panned before it opened. I know critics don’t have as much clout as they used to, but sites like Rotten Tomatoes use an aggregate of critic reviews to rate films. And UP, just by being a Disney/Pixar film, already had a stamp of approval. Disney continues to be the only true brand in film. No one thinks “Oh, a Universal film! I have to see it!” But people do feel that way towards Disney and especially Disney/Pixar.

But while it’s flawed, it is becoming increasingly true the more popular social media sites like twitter and facebook become. Before we told only a handful of people what we thought of movies. Now it’s posted online for everyone to see at once. I know I update my twitter about pretty much every movie I watch. And new movies are almost always a trending topic on opening weekend.